Within the scope of efforts to improve the comfort of vehicle users, among other things, heatable steering wheels are offered so that the main gripping area of the steering wheel, that is to say, the steering wheel rim, can be set to a temperature that is pleasant to the touch. Nowadays, for design reasons, the steering wheel rim often has two different visible sheathings, for example, wood and leather, which abut each other. Since the edges of the wood sheathing have to be refinished after having been installed, there is a risk that heating wires or heating mats situated near the surface could be damaged. Currently, a solution to this problem consists of using several heating mats. In the abutting area, the individual heating mats are spaced apart from each other and either have to be subsequently joined to each other or else they each require a separate power supply.
An objective of the invention is to find an inexpensive and technically more advantageous approach to construct the abutting area of two sheathings of a heatable steering wheel.